In the End
by LondonBelow
Summary: What is it that makes a person walk out, even on someone he or she loves? canon pairings, and then some
1. Chapter 1

This was written for Speedrent challenge 257, applying the song "How to Save a Life" by The Fray to 3 couples.

**Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson, "Lola" belongs to The Kinks, I have no idea who owns the gorilla game but it's not mine**

"_You could've been more supportive, you know. I was upset, you didn't have to treat me like a leper."_

_The worst is when no apology comes. How, knowing, could anyone do that to you? What sort of person lets you cry alone? "I never know what to say. I always feel so awkward."_

"_So you just left me alone?" At least you're able to say it. Recognizing that someone has wronged you is acknowledging that you deserve better. "You just left me alone, it wasn't comfortable for you so you decided… you just…" Maybe it's an inability to withstand it that prompts the nod._ _"You son of a bitch!"_

"_Hey! It's not my fault, okay? I just don't know—"_

_You groan and shove past. You don't want to hear this. You don't want to hear how your needs, your weaknesses are too much. You don't want to know that you're selfish. You don't want to question your right, after a week of tiny spats and being wronged and humiliated, to close your mouth._

"_Why are you overreacting?"_

"_I am NOT overreacting." You need it to be true._

"_Look." The hand on your chest makes your pulse hurry. You try, subtly, to deepen your breathing. "I'm sorry. Okay?" It's a lie and you know it. "I just don't know what to do in those situations." The fingers teasing your hair make you want to offer forgiveness._

_You want to offer the desired answer, not forgiveness but that it's okay, that you don't need to forgive. You were being over-emotional, weren't you?_

_You shove. DON'T touch me._

TO BE CONTINUED!

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	2. Angel

**Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson, "Lola" belongs to The Kinks, I have no idea who owns the gorilla game but it's not mine**

ANGEL

After knowing someone only one night, it seems strange to think, _Well, that's unlike him._ It seems strange, yet that's what I found myself thinking, walking up to the loft on Christmas eve, about a comment concerning Roger Davis.

"You'll know him when you see him," he told me. "He looks like death. Not his body, just his attitude." As though I should have shuddered to think it! I have HIV. I've made my peace with death. "Just…" Tom paused, turned to me and said, "Try not to be offended by him. He doesn't mean it like that."

"I thought he was your friend," I said.

"He is my friend."

"The one who talks about everything."

"Yes."

"And Mark's the one who doesn't."

"Right."

"About anything."

He chuckled. "Yeah."

"To an unhealthy degree."

"You got his number."

I nodded. "See, I was listening."

"Baby, I didn't mean that."

I shrugged. "I'll try not to be offended," I ceded. Tom's smart, and knows it and always has known it. Sometimes I wanted to explain something, but didn't, like that I've been dressing in drag on and off for five years, so I know almost in the blink of an eye who has a good heart and who doesn't. Sometimes, people just are unready to hear it. They're not ready to be wrong.

It was in August that this became a problem. In August, I shivered every night, even sleeping under a warm blanket, even curled up with him. And still, he went about every day normally, never said a word about it nor gave me those looks I watched so carefully for, the looks that say, _I want to remember every second until you die. Please don't die._

The loft was the accepted hangout of our group, since three lived there and Maureen had a habit of showing up every couple of weeks to cry her eyes out on the couch or seduce Mark. At least, those are the stories.

"You were piss drunk," Mark continued, sitting on the couch, barely able to keep himself from laughing, "and you came into my room—"

"I did not!" Maureen objected, drawing herself up in full dignity.

"Yeah, you did," Roger said.

Mimi, sitting on his lap, smacked his shoulder. "What were you doing in Mark's bedroom?" she demanded.

"Nothing, you could hear Maureen through the entire loft. 'Please, pookie! It's really for you! You haven't had any in months!'" he whined, mimicking Maureen. She laughed. Mark blushed.

"Hey, Roger?"

"Yea'?" Roger dropped the h off the end of the word.

"When're you going to play for us again?"

He grinned. "Okay." He nudged Mimi to scoot off his lap, picked up the acoustic and checked the tuning. "Actually, I've been thinking about good songs for you, Angel."

"Aw, sweetie."

I didn't know the song by the opening chords, but Mark and Mimi did. They shared a glance. Mimi stifled a giggle; Mark's eyebrows made a break for freedom. "I met him in a pub down in old SoHo…"

During the last verse of 'Lola', Roger glanced up at me, grinning, looking for a smile to match his. And I was smiling. I was also inadvertently displaying the first lesion on my arm, which is what made Roger's grin falter. He struck a foul note, and when he paused everything went too quiet, then he forced himself through the remainder of the song with Mimi's hand on his shoulder.

Afterwards, Roger set down his guitar and stormed off to his room.

"He'll be fine." That was Tom's contribution. "Roger's a drama queen. He'll be okay."

Maybe when someone's dying, it's okay not to be okay.

Mimi was trying to hold herself together. She came over and hugged me. Mark apologized for Roger. Maureen joined Mimi. But I was looking at Tom, who had gone outside and started smoking pot.

That night, he was complaining about his computer, which he had to use for electronic gradebook but was quite convinced would lead to the breakdown of society, dehumanizing everything, making it unnecessary for one person ever to see or speak to another face-to-face.

"…and it went down on me again today," he complained.

"Hm. You know, I think you're spending altogether too much time with that computer."

"What? …oh." He got the joke and laughed. "Yeah."

Right. He liked to complain about his computer, but actually he wandered around humming the music from a game in which gorillas threw bananas at one another from atop high buildings. Any morning I awoke to hear that aggravating tune—"Doobie-doobie-doobie-doop-do-do"—I pulled the pillow over my head and went back to sleep.

At least the tune never made its way into bed. I think I would've made him sleep on the couch. But Tom left the tune outside the bedroom, leaving me free to cuddle up to him, wait until we were almost asleep, and say, "You know I'm dying, don't you?"

"Why would you say that?"

"When I die, I don't want you to die."

I told him, "I can't die until you let me die."

He never said anything in return, and the only discomfort I felt in falling asleep that night was knowing he was awake, and would be awake.

I'm still waiting. Tonight, lying here, I'm just listening to that same noise go over and over and over, when everyone's gone home except for him. I didn't need to see the marks to know what Mimi had been doing. I didn't need to see his face to know that Roger had been crying.

"Tom."

I can speak with him, finally, in one of the rare moments when no one is here except him, and he isn't holding me and sobbing into my hair, little as there is of it.

He doesn't tell me not to speak. Somehow, he thinks, they think, anything I say will be important.

"Please let me die."

"You still have time—"

"I don't." I can't do this anymore. Hospitals are not unfamiliar places, but I can't stand it, I can't stand barely being able to breathe. I can't stand telling Mimi one more time that she really picked a great color, when the truth is I can't make out the color. "I need to know I'm the only one. Don't die with me, Thomas." My lip cracks. It doesn't matter.

"Okay."

"Don't."

"I won't."

"Don't."

"I won't!" He's trying not to cry. "I won't. I won't die with you."

"Promise."

"I promise you that I will not die with you."

I hear him making the call over the flatlining. I can still hear it. "Mimi… you think I could meet you after work?"

And she's screaming, because she already knows.

_TO BE CONTINUED!_

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	3. Again

**Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson, "Lola" belongs to The Kinks, I have no idea who owns the gorilla game but it's not mine**

_You do everything too violently. You throw the bag so hard it scratches your hand. The stinging has yet to fade as you yank open the drawers and begin picking your underwear out. Lucky you two are different sizes. Nothing's folded._

_From the doorway, "What are you doing?" like it isn't obvious._

_You're leaving._

_You hate to cause pain, but if you stay, you'll die. You'll keep pressing down your emotions until they're not there anymore. You're leaving._

_You pause to stare. You don't try to control your breathing. It's animalistic, only adding to your craze, and you like it. "I'm getting the hell out!" You pick up the books lying by the bed. They're yours. Mostly. Two of them belong to the public library, and vaguely you wonder where your card is. You'll ask a friend to pick it up._

"_Why? Come on! You're not exactly perfect, you know!"_

"_No." You hurl down a few shirts and spin round. If you're going to be like that, do it to my face. "No, I am so fucking far from perfect… but you know what? Nobody knows what to do!" The words came out so loud and harsh your throat seems to tear. "Nobody knows, but most people try because they're not too selfish to realize that someone they care about is in pain! And needs them! But you don't care about anyone, do you? You care about yourself first and only. You're too selfish to give a shit about anyone but yourself, and I'm sick of loving someone who doesn't love me back."_

_Weakly, very weakly, "I love you."_

"_No. You love you."_

"_I… I've been trying."_

_You know. You know, you've seen it, but you've also seen how for each attempt it's your mouth or your hand for pleasure in return. You've seen how try after try means hiding more and more of yourself._

"_I'm sorry. I'm sorry your dad didn't love you right, I'm sorry you've had poor relationships, I'm sorry I'm not enough," you list, and you are. "I'm sorry I have to leave." But you have to leave._

_You watch for a while. You watch the shock register. You watch the tears begin to well and you know that if a single one falls, you'll stay._

_Your name comes as a weak appeal, a voice on the edge of tears but determined not to cry. You can't live like this. You can't stay in a relationship defined by a lack of feeling. If you do, you'll die._

_Your name comes. Your name, in a tone of begging._

_Don't talk to me._

_Your relationship had been withering in those silences, in the quiet handjobs to keep your partner sated, in the tears you coughed into the sink because you feared anger. How long since you were touched?_

"_Please, wait!" You feel the tension in the fabric as your shirt is grabbed, twisted, held. "Wait." A face presses against your back. "Don't. Please, don't leave. Please, baby, just… we'll sit down, and we'll talk, and… and I'm trying. I am trying. Don't leave me, baby, I promise it'll be better. Haven't things been better this year?"_

_You shrug off the pressure. It's not intended to hurt, even though you know it will, that grain of truth. "No." They've been progressively worse._

_You pick up your bag. "I can't be with you."_

_You heft it onto your shoulder. "I wanted to love you. I did. I do. But loving you means killing myself." You always were melodramatic. You can't help it. All those years, as a child. All those years with your nose in a book and your head in the clouds, you never learned to mask your emotions. You say what you mean._

"_Goodbye." For the end, for giving up, for hurting him, "I'm sorry." You feel sick as you walk out the door. You feel so bad you know it can only get better. _

To be continued!

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	4. Maureen

**Disclaimer: RENT belongs to Jonathan Larson, "Lola" belongs to The Kinks, I have no idea who owns the gorilla game but it's not mine**

JOANNE

Since Maureen moved in, the apartment has grown frivolous. Not that I mind, but still sometimes I do a double-take at the panties hanging from the shower-rail to dry out. She is very meticulous about her underwear, considering her inability to keep them on.

I used to leave out oranges stuck with cloves for the aromatic advantages. The result was usually a pile of cloves and orange peels.

When I tried to determine why I loved Maureen, I couldn't. I couldn't say why I loved anyone. I know I like Steve at the office because he is dedicated and proficient. I like Montana, the secretary, because he's funny and light and personal with everyone, without being disrespectful. I also like that neither of them has responded to Maureen's advances. And I know she's made them.

Know, I don't know, I cannot prove that she's made them. It's Maureen! Of course she has! Yet I have nothing but speculation, and it kills me.

Am I jealous? Is it only an assumption, after seeing her gravitate time and time again towards someone else? What if she only does that when I'm in the room? It seems logical, if Maureen has any interest in me. It's even understandable.

It has to stop.

I don't even know that it's going on, and what I don't know is driving me mad!

She wanders into the kitchen wearing nothing but a long T-shirt that reaches almost mid-thigh and pours herself a glass of water from the tap. And it shouldn't bother me, that T-shirt. This is our apartment, no one here but us, no one but me to see.

"Maureen, could you sit down for a minute?"

She hops up on the counter. "Yeah?" She's not wearing underpants. And she shaved.

It's a sign of the seriousness of the situation that this doesn't interest me. "At the table, honeybear. Please." I'm not asking.

"Okay." Maureen hops down and sits at the table. "What's up, pookie?"

What _is_ up? I don't know. There's no point in accusing. I would prefer to discuss her constant flirting _now_, when I'm not angry, but somehow I can't think of any specific examples.

"Have you ever cheated on me?"

"Pookie!"

"Maureen, please. I need to know." I can't do this if I don't know.

"Of course not." Mouth agape, she appeals to an invisible audience, "How can you even ask me that?"

A dull ache builds behind my eyes. "Maureen, you have a habit of making your presence very well known, and being very friendly. I don't like that."

She laughs in disbelief. "But you know I'm all yours," she says.

I nod. "Okay." I don't like it. There's no proof. There's no evidence. There's a knock at the door. I glance at Maureen, who shrugs. "We're not expecting anyone?"

"No," she tells me.

Maureen and I don't have the same friends. Maureen and I don't run in the same circles. Maybe that's what bothers me so much, is that there are so many times throughout the day when I haven't the faintest idea where she is or who she is with.

Sometimes we meet for lunch at a café she likes, where she knows one of the waiters. The first time we were there, she gave him a little spank right in front of me. He obviously saw my expression and read it, because he smiled and said, "Don't worry, I've been with the same man for over years."

Maybe if I knew more, or had someone reliable to assuage my fears, but all I have is the least reliable witness. If I had some tiny fact, one undeniable shred of evidence, I wouldn't feel nauseous now.

People say that my job is my life. My job is not my life. My life is my job.

The knock comes again. I glance at Maureen. Right. "I'll get it."

Standing in the doorway is Maureen's friend, the one she spanked at the restaurant. He has a bag in one hand and he's crying. When I answer, he cringes, pushes away a tear that is swiftly replaced, and says, "Hi… Maybe you remember me? I'm Maureen's friend. Is she here? Can I come inside please?"

"Roger?" Maureen is at my side in half a heartbeat. "Oh my God, Roger, what's… what…"

"I left Mark," Roger says, then he breaks down. I look at Maureen.

"It's okay," she says. "Come inside, it's okay…" And she looks at me. Reaching for him, beckoning him in, Maureen looks to me to make sure it's all right, and that's everything I needed. Just that one time, I needed her to cede to me without being asked. Not that anyone needed to ask, of course he can come in, he's hysterical and he doesn't look to be out of his teens yet.

"Yeah. Come on inside, Roger."

I don't sound real. I sound so false even saying his name, and everyone knows it, but Maureen brings him in and I rub his back a bit as he passes by. Maureen makes him lay down on the couch. This is an entirely new Maureen, this is a Maureen I haven't seen before.

"Come on. It's okay, just lay down."

"He didn't deserve it," Roger protests. He's curled up on the couch, shaking.

Maureen strokes his hair. "Maybe not, honey, but neither did you. Listen, you gonna be okay here for five minutes while I get dressed?"

"I'm not incapable."

"Joanne'll keep you company."

"I'm not incapacitated!"

"Sure you are," I say. "You're, what, eighteen? And you just left your boyfriend of _years_, your entire personality is probably dependent on him. I'd be concerned if you weren't a trainwreck."

Roger grins weakly. I have validated his emotions. "Thanks, Pookie," Maureen says, and she kisses my cheek. I grab her hand gently as she walks past and ask, "Maureen… did you truly never…?"

"Once," Maureen says. "With Mark, a little over a year ago."

To my surprise, I'm not angry. I nod and release Maureen's hand. In the end, what matters isn't how hard I tried or how long it took her to listen. It's that she listened at all. She cared enough to listen, and she trusted enough to tell me.

THE END!


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